Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
CLI Reference (API Version 2013-02-01)
AWS Documentation » Amazon EC2 » Command Line Reference » Commands (CLI Tools) » ec2-create-image
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ec2-create-image

Description

Creates an Amazon EBS-backed AMI from a running or stopped instance. For more information about Amazon EBS-backed AMIs, see Storage for the Root Device.

Note

If you customized your instance with instance store volumes orAmazon EBS volumes in addition to the root device volume, the new AMI contains block device mapping information for those volumes. When you launch an instance from this new AMI, the instance automatically launches with those additional volumes.

The short version of this command is ec2cim.

Syntax

ec2-create-image instance_id --name name [--description description] [--no-reboot] [-b, --blockdevicemapping mapping ]

Options

NameDescription

instance_id

The ID of the instance.

Type: String

Default: None

Required: Yes

Example: i-10a64379

-n, --name name

A name for the new image.

Type: String

Default: None

Constraints: 3-128 alphanumeric characters, parenthesis (()), commas (,), slashes (/), dashes (-), or underscores(_). Allows spaces if the name is enclosed in quotation marks.

Required: Yes

Example: -n "Standard Web Server"

-d, --description description

A description for the new image.

Type: String

Default: None

Constraints: Up to 255 characters

Required: No

Example: -d Fedora_v11

--no-reboot

When this option is absent, Amazon EC2 attempts to cleanly shut down the instance before image creation and reboots the instance. When this option is used, Amazon EC2 doesn't shut down the instance before creating the image; therefore, file system integrity on the created image can't be guaranteed.

Type: Boolean

Default: false

Required: No

Example: --no-reboot

-b, --block-device-mapping mapping

The block device mapping for the instance. This argument is passed in the form of <devicename>=<blockdevice>. The devicename is the device name of the physical device on the instance to map. The blockdevice can be one of the following values:

  • none - Suppresses an existing mapping of the device from the AMI used to launch the instance. For example: "/dev/sdc=none".

  • ephemeral[0..3] - An instance store volume to be mapped to the device. For example: "/dev/sdc=ephemeral0".

  • [snapshot-id]:[volume-size]:[true|false]:[standard|io1[:iops]] - An EBS volume to be mapped to the device. [snapshot-id] To create a volume from a snapshot, specify the snapshot ID. [volume-size] To create an empty EBS volume, omit the snapshot ID and specify a volume size instead. For example: "/dev/sdh=:20". [delete-on-termination] To prevent the volume from being deleted on termination of the instance, specify false. The default is true. [volume-type] To create a Provisioned IOPS volume, specify io1. The default volume type is standard. If the volume type is io1, you can also provision the number of IOPS that the volume supports. For example, "/dev/sdh=snap-7eb96d16::false:io1:500".

You can specify multiple blockdevicemapping arguments in one call.

For more detailed information about block device mapping, see Block Device Mapping in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide.

Type: String

Default: None

Required: No

Example: -b "/dev/sdc=snap-7eb96d16:100:false:io1:500"

Note

On Windows, the mapping argument must be enclosed in double quotes, as shown in the example.

Common Options

OptionDescription

--region REGION

Overrides the region specified by the EC2_URL environment variable and the URL specified by the -U option.

Default: The value of the EC2_URL environment variable, or us-east-1 if EC2_URL isn't set.

Example: --region eu-west-1

-U, --url URL

The uniform resource locator (URL) of the Amazon EC2 web service entry point.

Default: The value of the EC2_URL environment variable, or https://ec2.amazonaws.com if EC2_URL isn't set.

Example: -U https://ec2.amazonaws.com

-K, --private-key EC2-PRIVATE-KEY

The private key that identifies you to Amazon EC2. For more information, see Tell the Tools Who You Are.

Default: The value of the EC2_PRIVATE_KEY environment variable. If EC2_PRIVATE_KEY isn't set, you must specify this option.

Example: -K pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem

-C, --cert EC2-CERT

The X.509 certificate that identifies you to Amazon EC2.

Default: The value of the EC2_CERT environment variable. If EC2_CERT isn't set, you must specify this option.

Example: -C cert-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem

-O, --aws-access-key AWS_ACCESS_KEY

The access key ID associated with your AWS account. For more information, see Tell the Tools Who You Are.

Default: The value of the AWS_ACCESS_KEY environment variable. If AWS_ACCESS_KEY isn't set, you must specify this option.

Example: -O AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE

Note

For more information, see the following section, Deprecated Options.

-W, --aws-secret-key AWS_SECRET_KEY

The secret access key associated with your AWS account.

Default: The value of the AWS_SECRET_KEY environment variable. If AWS_SECRET_KEY isn't set, you must specify this option.

Example: -W wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

Note

For more information, see the following section, Deprecated Options.

-T, --security-token TOKEN AWS_DELEGATION_TOKEN

The AWS delegation token.

Default: The value of the environment variable (if set).

--connection-timeout TIMEOUT

The connection timeout, in seconds.

Example: --connection-timeout 30

--request-timeout TIMEOUT

The request timeout, in seconds.

Example: --request-timeout 45

-v, --verbose

Displays verbose output, including the API request and response on the command line. This is useful if you are building tools to talk directly to our Query API.

-H, --headers

Includes column headers in the command output.

--show-empty-fields

Shows empty columns as (nil).

--hide-tags

Omits tags for tagged resources.

--debug

Displays internal debugging information. This can assist us when helping you troubleshooting problems.

-?, --help, -h

Displays usage information for the command.

-

Reads arguments from standard input. This is useful when piping the output from one command to the input of another.

Example: ec2-describe-instances | grep stopped | cut -f 2 | ec2-start-instances -

Deprecated Options

For a limited time, you can still use the private key and X.509 certificate instead of your access key ID and secret access key. However, we recommend that you start using your access key ID (-O, --aws-access-key) and secret access key (-W, --aws-secret-key) now, as the private key (-K, --private-key) and X.509 certificate (-C, --cert) won't be supported after the transition period elapses. For more information, see Tell the Tools Who You Are.

OptionDescription

-K, --private-key EC2-PRIVATE-KEY

The private key to use when constructing requests to Amazon EC2.

Default: The value of the EC2_PRIVATE_KEY environment variable.

Example: -K pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem

-C, --cert EC2-CERT

The X.509 certificate to use when constructing requests to Amazon EC2.

Default: The value of the EC2_CERT environment variable.

Example: -C cert-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem

Output

This command returns a table that contains the following information:

  • The IMAGE identifier

  • The ID of the newly registered AMI

Amazon EC2 command line tools display errors on stderr.

Examples

Example Request

This example creates an AMI from the i-10a64379 instance.

PROMPT> ec2-create-image i-10a64379 --name "Standard Web Server" --description "Standard web server AMI"
IMAGE	ami-4fa54026

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